Wow! An 'Olds" Headline. Life style changes, not diets, have been the mantra of health care experts for as long as I can remember.

"Interventions that try to change the behavior of individuals but do nothing about the environment in which these people live, are likely to have modest and temporary effects at best,"

Makes plenty of sense to me. The immediate environment, of course, must be the home. It does no good if everyone else in the house is eating trashy while you're trying to eat correctly.

The bottom line is that we're all individuals, what works for some will not work for all. Many of us who are overweight get a bum rap when it comes to health scorecards. My husband is sixty-seven, I'm sixty-five, he has been very trim all of his life, I've been overweight all of my life. Neither of us ever smoked. He has diabetes, high blood pressure, back problems and arthritis. I have a bunion.

There are so many widely varied factors that affect health, it's foolish to blame any one. My mother was ahead of her time when it came to nutrition and instinctively knew what to do to give her family a good, healthy base on which to build. His mother lived on cigarettes and beer. Eating well, even if it's accompanied by some junk food, makes up for a multitude of sins regardless of weight except in cases of extreme and morbid obesity. Overweight people can be healthy, too.

 I'm guessing that it hasn't occured to the food and fat police that over eating is as much an eating disorder as anexoria or bulimia.

Like any issue or addiction people need to learn why (deep down) they over eat and that dieting is NOT about deprivation but rather about helping your body. I could go into the long of it all but I think common sense will prevail and people can figure that out.

One of the major problems that leads to regaining weight after a significant, successful period of weight loss is that the dieter is never really taught how to survive outside the program. They rely on things like "points" and meal plans that structure the user's life to the point where they don't actually have to think very much about what they're doing. The lack of education, especially functional education on subjects like mean planning and the most basic of biological principles like how different foods actually affect the body, really is a detriment to the long-term success of dieters.

Many systems oversimplify the concepts behind weight loss for ease of use while on the program. Unfortunately, dynamically creating your own day-to-day "meal plan" on the fly is just not as simplified. It takes a bit more knowledge and skill than dieter's usually obtain while going through a weight loss program. With all of the emphasis on the scale and none on the learning process, they come out no better than when they started. They are just as helpless and will, of course, go back to the habits they relied on in the past. As with most self-improvement processes, education is imperative and is the factor that will decide whether or not the individual internalizes the skills they need to thrive long-term.

NutritionPerfected.com/np-blog.html

I agree with the above comments -I believe, for most people that good health IS determined by a good diet etc and health is overall determined by the choices we make ie smoking, exercise etc. For others, unfortunately, some people draw the short straw and despite taking on a healthy approach, are the ones who end up chronic diseases. I guess that's the luck of the draw in life. If we eat well, without counting every calorie, increase our exercise (walk the dog a little more!), try not to stress too much, and drink plenty of water to flush out toxins and the fat from cells we are half way there! Ensure the water is fresh and pure. This is achieved through Reverse Osmosis. Learn about the benefits of reverse osmosis www.pure-eau.co.uk